Visit to a Weird 'Verse, Rerevisited
by C. A. Bridges
Summary: AU story: Nathan Fillion onboard the Serenity. Nuff said. A tribute to Ruth Berman's classic Star Trek fanfic. Adult language, no sex.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

He pulled into the back parking lot of the hotel a bit faster than he really needed to, but that was probably because the adrenaline was already buzzing in his veins. This was a rush, no two ways about it, and he'd do it for a living if acting wasn't so much fun. Besides, he was supposed to be faster, more dynamic than regular guys. Nathan Fillion was an action star. As he saw it, he had a certain responsibility to his fans to be reckless and entertaining.

Fortunately for his sanity, his girlfriend had a more pragmatic view of fame. "Don't let 'em go to your head, Captain Tightpants," she had said an hour previous, smiling and looking all beautiful.

"Me? Get a swelled head? I'm just the humblest, most modest god-like man you'll ever meet," Nathan had replied. "I'll see you next week." He'd kissed the top of her head and peeled out of the driveway, already picturing spaceflight and dire situations in his mind. And now he stood alone, an overnight bag slung over his shoulder, before the less-than-majestic service delivery door of the Hilton Burbank Hotel, the home for the next three days for himself and a few thousand screaming fans. _Oh, to be adored by so many. The things I put up with..._ Grinning, he stepped forward.

The door opened before he reached it to reveal a pudgy, middle-aged fan. Granted, that was probably stereotyping the poor guy, who was almost certainly one of the convention organizers, but he had the intense and slightly off-center expression that only comes from devoting your life to a fictional universe. "Mr. Fillion?" he said. "You're early, excellent, that's excellent."

Nathan took a deep breath and readied himself to be led around by other people for three days. Doing appearances at conventions was a rush, and a stressful hassle, and an incredible ego-boost, and conventions such as the Big Damn Flanvention were all that doubled and squared because instead of being about an entire genre like most conventions they were solely devoted to a single TV show and movie. The TV show was _Firefly, _and the movie was_ Serenity_, and together they had been the greatest experiences of his acting career.

And many people agreed. Already he could see, past the big air conditioning machines, crowds streaming across the sidewalks towards the front of the hotel. Many of them wore long brown coats or fuzzy orange hats. Soon this hotel would be filled to overflowing with thousands of screaming fans of all ages who would all gladly commit several mortal sins just to get near his own actual body.

But that was fine, because Nathan knew a secret: He was as big a fan of Joss Whedon's creation as anyone in there, and any praise sent his way was accepted as praise for the dream they shared. They weren't the only ones to devote their lives to a fictional universe.

"Hey, how you doing?" he said, holding out a hand. The fan started nervously, then grabbed Nathan's hand in both of his and shook it back and forth. "You the one in charge of me?"

"Um, yes, I'm Jackson, I'll be, um, guiding you. First let me show you where you'll be doing your, um, photo ops." This was one of the star-struck fans, then. He could barely get his words out, he was so excited. No worries, Nathan was good at making people comfortable. He was a pretty big-time dork himself, his mother always said, he just looked mainstream. "We have, um, we have a Serenity set over here—"

Nathan slung his bag to one side and settled his shoulders. "Lead on, MacDuff. I'm all yours. Just don't leave any marks I'll have to explain later."

Lurching forward, Jackson walked him around the side of the building and across two parking lots, moving farther and farther away from the hotel. "You know, if you're taking me across state lines I have to call my parole officer first," Nathan said, smiling. "It's not a big deal, just a formality, really..."

"It's just over here, sir," Jackson said. "The people who bought the annual passes get photos with you away from the crowds. It's a, you know, a perk. Just right this way."

"People pay a lot for this?"

"Oh, yes, sir. There are people who have gone to great lengths to get you where you belong. I mean," he said, stammering, "there are people who care very much about Firefly and Serenity. The 'verse must continue. It must!"

"Easy, boy. Happens I agree with you, and not just because I could use the work. I miss that boat. And a big chunk of the con money goes to charity, anyway." That was another great thing about Firefly fans; they gave to people. And they recognized genius. Ahem.

Jackson smiled at him. "If you don't mind my asking... would you do it again? Would you be Captain Malcolm Reynolds?"

"In a heartbeat. I'm up for a sequel, a trilogy, more TV shows, cartoons, whatever. As long as Joss is in charge and the rest of the crew are in, I'm there." Nathan grinned. "I have never played a character like Mal before or since, and he'll always be my favorite. He's... intense. I'd actually like to do two more movies and then have Mal die at the end just so no one else can play him, you know, the way they do with James Bond. He's mine! Although I'd love to play James Bond..."

"Oh, Mal can't die," Jackson said, horrified. "He can't! He's got to go on and he has to be you." He clutched at Nathan's sleeves, clearly distraught.

"Hey, hey, it's OK, I ain't going anywhere. And Joss would never put anyone else in the coat, or I'll release the pictures I have of him with Boreanaz."

Jackson relaxed, as much as he was capable of, and smiled a watery smile. "Yes, well, we'll get you back onboard as soon as we can. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised." They arrived at the desolate end of the last parking lot, where sat a massive motor home that had apparently collided with a nuclear power plant. A network of cables and pipes crisscrossed the sides and met on top, and the dashboard lights visible through the windshield looked a lot more complicated than the usual Airstream. There was an amateurish Serenity logo painted on the side. "Check this out," Jackson said proudly, and he swung the door open wide. Inside was... a memory.

Nathan stepped up into the motor home, astounded. A great deal of time and attention had been applied to the inside of this cramped place to make it a pretty decent, scaled-down replica of his character's bunk on Serenity. The bed, the desk, the curved wall on one side, the sink, the ladder, the maps on the wall, it was as accurate as could be imagined in a recreational vehicle.

His face split into a wide smile. "This is... this is something," he said. "Did you do this?"

Jackson nodded. "I've been working on it for a couple years, now. It's based on the show, I didn't have time to change it to match the movie, I hope that's OK."

"No, no, this is, this is really something. Really takes me back, you know. This is where they're gonna do the photos?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes, you'll be sitting at your desk and I'll, I'll control the camera from the dashboard. I'd like to get some test shots, if you didn't mind. Now?"

Nathan plopped down into the wooden chair in front of the desk and waggled his hands at the fidgeting fan. "Knock yourself out. I'll just make some captainy poses." He threw an arm over the back of the chair and assumed a serious expression. "Ooh, broody. Hey, which way should I be facing? I don't see the lens."

Jackson stumbled awkwardly through the small doorway to the driver's seat and closed the door behind him. After a moment his reedy voice came over a speaker on the desk. "OK, here we go, this is it, it's really going to happen. Are you ready to be Mal again?"

"I am devilishly handsome, your camera loves me," Nathan called out. "Wherever it is."

"Then here we go. Captain Reynolds, I salute you."

Nathan would have wondered more at that phrasing but he was distracted by the low hum that suddenly kicked in all around him, and the flashing lights that were running along the floorboards. "Whoa, special effects!" The lights whipped past faster and faster as the motor home started shaking slightly. "Hey, is this ship OSHA approved? If we crash this thing you make sure you tell people you were driving." He chuckled to himself, but the shaking was getting to him. If this was how all the pictures were going to go he was going to have to insist on Polaroids, this was way too—

A blinding flash of light slashed across his eyes and a wave of crackling heat passed completely through his body, doubling him over with pain that continued to hammer at every inch of him. He yelled in surprise. The motor home was gone. All he could see were stars, bright and beautiful and sparkling in the inky black of space that wrapped around him and squeezed all the breath out of his chest until he gasped and wheezed and tried to scream. And then the stars crashed down on him.

His eyes opened, finally, to a very fuzzy world. His back was ice cold and he was shivering, but that didn't make sense. Why would he be...

He sat up abruptly. He was naked. This was not the very best way to wake up at a convention. Oh, God, what had he done? Did they get him drunk? Free drinks were the devil to turn down and they always worked faster than the other kind. What else had happened? He put his head in his hands and moaned. He was about to have his first scandal, and he'd promised his parents he wouldn't be one of those kinds of actors. Damn, damn, damn.

Nathan lifted his head, warily, to see where he was.

Where he was, was impossible.

He was on the floor of his bunk. That is, he was on the floor in Malcolm Reynolds' bunk, with a blanket wrapped around his legs like he'd just fallen out of bed. On the Serenity. A fictional spaceship, the made-up kind that nevertheless seemed to be real and hard under his backside. He put his hand on the curved wall to steady himself as he stood up and nearly recoiled from the cold seeping through it.

This had to be a joke. Joss or Tim or Barry must have gotten up some cash and made a perfect replica to stick him in. They were probably watching him on a hidden camera somewhere. Bastards. Nice job, though, they'd really gone all out. Unlike the motor home version this room was perfect, solid, an exact copy of the set from the show, except this time there weren't any removable ceiling panels to accommodate lighting and sound booms. There was the constant rumble of a distant engine, though, and a very slight sense of movement that was truly impressing him. Once he got over being pissed he was probably going to laugh harder than anybody. He flipped a bird to any hidden cameras that might exist and hunted around for some clothes.

Of course, a Mal costume. Nathan shrugged and pulled it on. Same tight canvas pants, same suspenders, same boots, same holster rig. Different gun. It looked the same, but it was heavier, with a strong smell of oil. This must have cost Joss a fortune! Hell with the gag, he was keeping this gun and no two ways about it.

He holstered the gun with a practiced movement and stood before the steel mirror over his sink, just as he'd done a thousand times in his bathroom in Los Angeles. "'You willing to die for that belief,'" he asked himself, with a precise accent. "'I am,'" he quoted in his own voice, and quick-drew his gun out to point at the person in the mirror. "'Of course, that ain't exactly Plan—'"

The noise of the gun firing was painfully loud, with pinging ricochets coming from around the room that coincided with shattering glasses and exploding cabinets. He threw himself to the floor, trying to ignore the relentless ringing in his ears, and fought desperately to attain some sort of equilibrium.

"What the hell is this? They gave me live ammo? What the fuck were they—"

"Captain? Everything all right?"

The voice coming from above was his costar Gina Torres, and that made sense. She was in on it, the bitch. He chuckled to himself. Well, if she could stay in character, so could he. "Everything's fine, just a little target practice. Nothin' to see here."

"Kind of a short firing range, isn't it, sir? Or were you just evening out your toenails?"

Nathan laughed and holstered the gun. Then he pulled it back out and put the safety on before holstering it again. "Some of them toenails can rise up and attack a man, you know," he called. "They go feral." Time to face the music and see how far this charade went. He scrambled up the ladder and pulled the hatch to his room open. Well, whoever built the place screwed up there, the hatch was heavy and tried to stick. Gina was waiting for him in the hallway, in costume, in makeup, and totally in character. With her hip cocked and that knowing, amused expression on her face he could easily believe she was Zoe Washburne, a deadly fighter and his loyal right hand. He stepped up onto the hallway and stumbled, catching himself with one hand on her shoulder. She remained rock steady. It was like bracing yourself on a statue.

Nathan let his head drop down onto his chest and chuckled. Another blown scene. Somewhere cameramen and PAs were groaning and getting ready to start over again. Well, only one traditional way to finish it. "Summer!" he yelled to the ceiling, casting the usual unwarranted blame towards the brilliant young actor who so rarely screwed up.

Gina – Zoe – stared at him. "Captain? You shoot yourself somewhere that don't show? Should I call the doc?"

Nathan took a deep breath and settled back into his Mal-space, turning towards the bridge. "No, no, I'm fine. So," he said, smiling and clapping his hands together, "got your corpsified husband cleared out yet?"

Zoe stopped dead. He looked back to see her glaring at him in a way that made him decidedly uneasy. "Is that supposed to be funny, sir? 'Cuz I ain't seeing the humorous element."

"You know!" He made stabbing gestures towards his chest. "Wash, and the thing, with the leaf on the thing? Wash-ka-bob? Seriously, this is great, but who set this all up? Was it Joss? Is he here somewhere?" He looked around in case anyone was in the process of jumping out and yelling _surprise!_ "How did they do that rumbling thing?"

"Sir, I'm thinking we need to go see the doctor." Zoe reached out and gently turned him away from the bridge. "He can tell you all about the rumbling thing, all right? And then you can tell him why you've gone all insane."

"Hey, I am your captain, you shouldn't be patronizing me like that. I'll tell Larry." Nathan pulled away and ran back towards the bridge. If the rest of the set was this good, what was the bridge like?

He stepped over the doorway and nearly staggered. A blonde man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and jumpsuit was piloting what appeared to be the actual Serenity in what appeared to be actual deep space. The detail of the room was astounding. Every button, every panel, every plastic dinosaur was in place. The painted starfield backdrop outside the windshield looked amazingly real. It even smelled like an old spaceship, full of sweat and ionized air and recycled oxygen. "I heard shooting?" the blonde man said. "Those nightmares can get awful scary, captain, but they really can't hurt you. Honest."

"Alan?"

"Excuse me?"

"Wash?"

"Are we getting nicknames now? Because I always wanted to be called 'Killer.' I think it suits my prison-yard reputation," Wash said. He made a small adjustment to the wheel and Nathan felt the ship respond under his feet, with a tiny and slightly nauseating sense of vertigo as gravity adjusted itself to catch up. Wash pushed another few buttons and let the wheel slip out of his hands. "Can I pick Jayne's new name? I'm thinking something flowery, something romantic."

From behind Nathan Zoe spoke up. "Honey, might not be a good time to rile the captain." She stepped in behind him, never taking her eyes off his face like she expected him to pull his gun again. She might as well have not bothered; Nathan felt completely numb. Somewhere inside his head he was adding up construction costs and special effects budgets and they weren't coming out even. This wasn't possible. It simply wasn't possible. If Joss had had this much money to blow he'd have made another movie.

He stepped past the piloting helms like a man in a dream and jumped down the short ladder to stand in front of the windshield. It was cold. Bitterly cold. Colder than December in California, colder than winter in Edmonton. The kind of cold glass might be if, say, one side of it was exposed to the freezing vacuum of space. He noted, with a disconnected sense of reality, that there was no painted backdrop, power cables, or concrete floor outside, and the endless black just wrapped all the way around.

"Holy gorram shit," he muttered.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"Captain?" Zoe asked.

Nathan ignored her and concentrated on not throwing up. The stars weren't moving, but there was a very definite feeling of movement from the ship that his brain insisted on combining with the view to come up with "falling." Alarmingly, his stomach seemed to concur.

"OK," he said to the stars, "Not a lot of options here. Option one, I'm dreaming all this and I need to stop obsessing on my job so much before I start dreaming about repairing jukeboxes or shooting at slugs that aren't there."

"Maybe the doc oughtta come up here, you think? Hon?" Wash said. "For a little visit? We really don't see him enough anymore."

"Not a bad notion. No, don't use the intercom, we don't want this broadcast. Go get him, I'll stay here with the captain."

"Option two," Nathan said, "I've gone crazy, in which case I can ride this out until they find the right stuff to stick in me to bring me out."

Zoe stepped closer, carefully not making any sudden moves. "Sir, I really think you should sit down, get some rest. Doc said you might have a concussion from that last job. You got hit pretty hard."

Nathan looked back over his shoulder. "Option three," he told her, "I'm really here and I'm really him, and something is seriously fucked up."

"I can't argue, sir."

A new voice said, "Where is he?" Nathan stared past Zoe to see... Simon, not Sean, coming towards him. Things were a mite confused right now but still he could tell right away that this man was a doctor and not someone playing one on TV. Cool hands lifted his eyelids; a bright light made him blink anyway. "His pupils react normally, nothing unusual I can see. You say he was raving?"

"Or possibly ranting," Wash said. "Maybe even rambling."

"He's not acting like himself," Zoe said.

Nathan started giggling. "Not my fault, no one's yelled 'action' yet..." Was the room spinning a little, or was Wash doing donuts?

"Oooookay, time for all good captains to go nite-nite," Simon said. "Wash... um, no, Zoe, would you mind...?" Zoe took Nathan's arm and helped Simon walk him back off the bridge towards sickbay. It wasn't an easy voyage, especially since Nathan insisted on stopping at landmarks along the way.

"Oh, look, you got the kitchen and everything all fixed up, that's nice." The galley cheered him up a bit. Those were always the best scenes to shoot, when everyone was around the table. Bitch to get a shot in the can, everyone laughing and trying to mess each other up, and they had to shoot all the scenes a thousand times to get all the over-the-shoulder angles, but it was homey and comfortable. Nathan had spent more than a little off-camera time hanging around in here, just for the feel of it. They all did. Especially Summer; she would spend hours in here learning her lines and getting into character and trying to find where Nathan had hidden her script. Usually he'd cram it into one of the cupboards she couldn't reach.

Funny thing, this looked somewhere between the TV show and the movie versions. It was smaller, like on the show, but it had the realistic details from the movie like more cabinets and nets over the shelving and stuff like that. Weird. What would he find if he started rummaging around? Cans and frozen packs and whatever the hell it was that they ate? One of Summer's scripts? If he opened enough doors, would he find the studio?

"Yes, Mal, we knew you'd like it," Simon said. "I didn't smell any alcohol on his breath. Has he been taking any pain medications? Like, a lot of pain medications?"

Zoe shrugged. "He ain't much for anything that dulls the pain of anything, if you take my meaning." They hustled him up the steps out of the galley area and headed for the stairs down to the lower levels.

"That's right," Nathan bellowed to the world at large. "I'm a tortured, hollow, soulless prick of a man! Captain Malcolm Reynolds, professional smuggler and part-time asshole!" He set his feet, causing both his carriers to swing around abruptly, facing him. "I'm not really him, you know," he told them solemnly, weaving. "I am so not that guy."

Simon and Zoe exchanged glances. "Of course not," Simon said carefully. "You would never be... him. Him is not who you should be at all, should he, Zoe?"

"No! You should be you, obviously," she said, smiling broadly and nodding along with Simon. "You should be a really good you, sir. A you that could walk would be good."

Simon peered up at Nathan. "Whom, exactly, would you be right now?"

"You guys know me, I'm—"

"You're waking everybody up, is what you're doing," Jayne said. Jayne Cobb, the Hero of Canton, all 6'4" of him, strode into the galley like he'd just made the last payment on it and started opening cabinets. "You guys gonna yell like that, decent thing to do would be to take it outside. Be sure to close the hatch after you leave."

Zoe and Simon both opened their mouths to respond but Nathan beat them to the punch. Suddenly he was standing straighter, taller, more confident. Captainy. "And how would you know the decent thing to do, Jayne? You read it in a book somewhere? Sorry, not a book. A fortune cookie?" He turned back to Simon. "You guys still have fortune cookies in the future, right?"

Simon nodded slowly but Nathan had already gone back to Jayne. "What I do on my boat is my business, best you get used to that, dong ma?"

Jayne spread his hands. "Hey, I got it. Just speaking my mind, is all. Not like you wouldn't shoot me in the kneecap if I woke you up at this hour of the night, screaming about smuggling and hollow and stuff."

Zoe tugged Nathan back in the right direction. "C'mon, sir, we have to go get our inocs before we reach Tethys, right?" she said loudly. Nathan stared Jayne down for a long moment before spinning on his heel and marching forward, leaving Zoe and Simon to rush after him.

"Damn me, I am a mean bastard," he said. "That felt natural."

Unusually for TV show sets, Serenity had been built in two long continual pieces for a more realistic feel and so long shots could be done without breaks. Still wasn't as long as tromping down three flights of metals stairs, though. Nathan looked around sickbay, curious. "Hey, what is this thing, anyway? We always figured it was for pulling bingo numbers out of," he said, holding up a round device.

Simon took it gently out of his hands. "It's an autoclave and we treat it very carefully. Please, Mal, lie down."

"Oh, right, got to get with the fixing up." Nathan clapped his hands together once and fairly leapt into the chair, bouncing a little. "This is damn comfy, you don't mind my saying so. Almost worth getting killed a bit to end up here." He started to unbutton his shirt and froze.

He didn't have the scars.

He didn't have Mal's scars. They'd see he was a different guy and a lifetime of science fiction had taught him that would be bad. It would disrupt the space-time continuum and all life as he knew it would stop instantaneously as every molecule in his body would explode at the speed of light, or something like that. He yanked his shirt back together. "You just wanted to look into my eyes again, right?"

"No, I want to make sure I didn't miss anything before. I'll need to examine you."

"You didn't miss anything. Zoe, tell him he didn't miss anything. That's an order."

Simon put his hand on Nathan's shoulder. "It's all right. Although if you're trying to reassure me of your sanity, you're kind of not. Please, captain, take off your shirt."

Nathan looked at Simon's hand, cool and comforting, with a sudden sense of horror. _Oh, God. It's hoyay_. And here he always thought they were kidding. He eased back onto the bed but he sought out Zoe and stared at her, willing her to stay in the room. _Don't leave me_, he thought desperately. _I don't want to find out what kind of story I'm in without armed backup._ "Zoe..."

Simon said, "Huh. I was sure you'd have--"

"Oh, hey, don't worry about it, those things heal up all the time. My cousin once had a scar went ear to ear and one day it just..." Nathan looked down at his own bare chest. There were scars there. And they didn't look as if they'd peel off.

A crescent-shaped one was carved under his right shoulder. There were assorted old bullet wounds here and there. An angry red dimple in his side reminded him of freezing cold, gasping lungs, and metal gratings leaping up at his face. Another close to it spoke of a sword biting him on a foggy morning. And a strange, round, red scar in the center of his chest caused him to shiver uncontrollably. This body remembered getting that mark, remembered unending, rippling pain like having all the blood in his veins ignited at once, remembered dying.

He didn't realize he'd passed out until he started coming back around. Someone was talking and they were probably talking about him, so he decided to stay asleep a little longer. He was going to have to be Mal, through and through, at least until he figured out what was going on, and one way to do that was to get more information. He listened intently while trying to ignore the gibbering fear in the back of his head. And the front of his head, come to think of it.

"—think it's just stress, combined with the blow to the head from that smuggler," Simon was saying. "The smuggler that wasn't Mal, I mean. I was expecting to find signs of physical trauma that might have caused him to experience symptoms of shock but he's fine."

"So he'll be all right?" Zoe asked.

"He should be. He just needs more rest."

"You know we're supposed to arrive at Tethys in 18 hours and the Larkin boys are gonna expect to see the captain upright and talking since the meeting was his idea and all."

"As long as he spends 17 of those hours asleep, he should be fine. I can give him something to help."

A new voice spoke up, very close by. "He's very far away. He went away and left a shadow puppet behind to play the part, but the understudy doesn't know the words, doesn't know the steps, doesn't know the tune, and the curtain's rising and he's afraid." Nathan opened his eyes to see River inches away from him. He held his breath as she examined him closely, like an interesting pet. Her eyes were even bigger than Summer's, more piercing, and that was saying something. They were slightly unfocused but not like she was looking at something else. More like she was looking at something in a different direction that happened to be right where he was.

Simon drew her back. "He'll be fine, River," he said, and Nathan had to bite his tongue to keep from congratulating Simon on finally getting his sister's name right on the first take. "The captain's had a rough time of it lately. We all have."

"This one hasn't," she said, but she skipped out of the room to sprawl on the couch outside, still staring at him.

After reassurances, some apologies, and some of what Nathan considered his best acting ever, he allowed himself to be escorted back to his bunk. "I'll be fine, you said so yourself and I understand you were a very promising intern before you turned to crime."

Simon shrugged. "You rest. Someone will bring you some dinner later."

"Not Jayne. I like my food without bites missing. And not..." Nathan sat down heavily. Inara. What the hell was he going to do about Inara?

Simon left him alone with his plight. What was he going to do about any of them, for that matter. Wash was still alive and River was still crazy, so clearly the movie hadn't happened. Was Inara still on the ship? Was Book? Was the movie even going to happen? Maybe the show was just... going on. He'd always felt it was canceled before its time. Maybe Someone Else thought so too. A Flying Dutchman kind of thing, a show cursed to run forever through endless seasons, sailing eternally through sweeps weeks of the damned.

Which had its own horrors. Would there be commercials? When you faded to black, did it hurt?

He sat up straight in the bed._ What if me being here means that Book and Wash don't have to die? _

Maybe that was the reason he was here in the first place. The events the Operative set… would set in motion would cause the havoc and bring the darkness. If Nathan just shot him in the head when he first saw him, instead of in his armored chest, everything would change and he could quantum-leap his way back home. True, the worlds would probably never find out about Pax and the Alliance's experiments, but he could still tell Simon why River was crazy and maybe they could fix her up without having to go through all that hell.

This could work. He hoped so, there weren't any ion-storm-affected transporters in this reality, or magic dimension hopping, or slingshotting around stars or any other funky and implausible way to get him back to 21st century L.A. "Thanks Joss," he muttered. "You had to make it _real_."

There was a knock; his hatch opened and Shepherd Book climbed down, carrying a covered plate. "Thought you could use a wholesome, nourishing meal," he said. "Sadly, all I could find was this."

Nathan smiled. Of the crew he'd met, only Book seemed to be a virtual duplicate of his actor. Ron had many of the same qualities as Book, apart from the mysterious and violent past. As far as Nathan knew, anyway. "Yeah, but food always tastes better when someone brings it to you. Whole societies have been based on that simple truth. Thanks, preacher."

"Any time." Although Book had a low chuckle where Ron had a loud and hearty laugh, Nathan noticed, like that big guy in the old 7-Up commercials. _No caffeine. Never had it, never will. Ha ha ha! _"I understand you were away from us for a spell. Mind talking about it?"

_Whoops, here we go_. "Weren't nuthin'. Just a few bubbles in the brainpan, I expect. Ever shake up a fizzy drink? That would be me. I'm fine, now. Plus I have a wholesome, nourishing meal to enjoy." He held up the plate. Something under the cover sloshed.

"Well, you rest easy. You'll need to be on your toes tomorrow, from what I hear."

"Really? Why's that?"

Book stopped with one foot on the bottom rung. "Jake and Last Larkin aren't going to be any too happy to see you, from what you said. You must have been pretty desperate to go to them for a job."

_Uh oh._ Nathan put down the plate. This was a closing act line coming up, he could tell. "Why not?"

"According to you, the last time you saw them you killed their brother, and that's the sort of thing that stays with a person. Personally, I'm impressed you're even going near their moon again." He smiled reassuringly. "You must have some plan cooked up. Goodnight."

Nathan sat perfectly still as Book disappeared up the ladder. Suddenly he knew exactly what fading to black felt like.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Standing alone in Serenity's cavernous, echoing cargo bay, Nathan tried to calm his pounding heart long enough to remember which button opened the hatch.

Landing on Tethys wasn't as big an ordeal as he had expected, and the view from the bridge had been simply breathtaking. The sun had dropped over the horizon just as Wash expertly punched through the atmosphere, providing a glorious sunset that lit up the sky with streaks of pink and purple and red, and then they circled the globe, skimming over the landscape fast enough to catch up with an equally stunning sunrise. Just about worth all this madness and it had left him grinning from ear to ear, although he put on a properly dour expression before Wash could see.

But now they were on the dirt, and the Larkin brothers were undoubtedly on the other side of the airlock, and Nathan was about to go face them and their heavily armed goons all by his lonesome.

There were times when he wished Malcolm Reynolds wasn't so much of a loner.

Sometimes it had been while filming an intimate scene with Morena. More than once Nathan had gotten personally fed up with Mal's scripted stubbornness around the woman that everyone knew he was in love with, and he'd grab Morena and slobber on her neck or swing her around and do-si-do a few steps. Always broke up the crew, kept things merry, and hey, grabbing Morena was its own reward.

Sometimes it had been when he had to do a reaction scene with Mal staring off into the distance, weighted down by his choices and the horrific events of his life. Every wrong move Mal had ever made, he carried on his shoulders like a lead weight. Nathan didn't, couldn't live like that, and occasionally he got a powerful impulse to slap Mal around a few times and tell him to lighten the hell up. He didn't, 'cause it would hurt, and it wouldn't have done a bit of good anyway, especially when Joss kept wanting him to go deeper and darker.

Right now, though, he was wishing Mal had been less of a loner because if the bastard had ever kept a _frickin' captain's log_, or maybe just _talked _to someone once in a while, Nathan could have found out who the hell the Larkin brothers were and why he, Mal, apparently had felt it necessary to pop one of them before he, Nathan, went out there to say howdy to the survivors.

Nathan had never shot a person, ever, not outside Halo 2. Not counting Halo 1, of course. But since he was now Mal for the foreseeable future that didn't appear to be a line of reasoning he thought he could get away with so he had spent some time trying to find one he could.

Even after hours of tearing apart Mal's cabin all he found were a few more weapons, some spare clips, some clothing that he recognized from the show, some very tattered star charts, and a cigar box that held a bundle of letters tied with a string, a tattered Independents patch with a faded blood stain, a set of dog tags, a picture of a tough-looking middle-aged woman, and, for some ungodly reason, a metal whistle.

He'd also found a hidden compartment in the deck under the bunk with a small sack of cash and two different sets of ship's ownership papers. But no log, no diary, not even any porn hidden under the mattress. Maybe dirty magazines were a sign of weakness out in the black, or else Jayne had stolen 'em all. Nathan was just going to have to step out into the world and ask somebody. Deep breath. _Be the captain. Be the captain_.

He tried Zoe first.

"So," he said, dropping into a chair next to where Zoe was sitting at the dinner table, stripping and cleaning her Sharps. "Think they'll still be pissed?"

"You mean, has the pain and shock of you shooting their baby brother in the head softened into a wistful memory?"

Nathan winced. "Yeah."

"Not likely."

"It's not like I had a choice," Nathan said hopefully.

"Wouldn't know. That was while me and Wash were on our honeymoon and you ran a job without us. You weren't too forthcoming with the details when you picked us up."

"Oh. Well, I didn't."

"Good to know, sir."

There was a long moment, broken only by the sound of a wet patch being pushed through a rifle breech.

"So. Good honeymoon?"

"I'm not too forthcoming with my own details, sir. But I'm pretty sure no one died."

"Good, good."

There was another long moment. And a dry patch, this time.

"And it's good that Jayne kept what happened to himself, since he was probably right there with me—"

Zoe pulled the patch rod out of the rifle and carefully set both of them down. "Sir, you have no idea why you shot that boy, do you?"

_Boy? Crap._ "Um, I, well, he tried to... I was almost... he came up and... not so much, no."

Her expression softened. "It's that concussion. I don't think you're all back yet."

_You don't know how true that is_, Nathan thought.

"But I do know you never shot no one didn't give you cause, nor hurt anyone wasn't going out o' their way to ask for it."

"So you think I should ask Jayne?" Nathan asked.

"You could try."

"Shiny," he said, and he stood up and took a step towards the door.

"Of course then the backstabbing mercenary would know that the only man keeping him from taking over the ship wasn't firing on all thrusters," Zoe said, selecting another dry patch. Nathan stared at her.

"You're all kinds of helpful, you know that?"

"Glad to be of service, sir."

Jayne had been in the cargo bay doing pull-ups from the stair supports. "Ninety-six," he puffed. "Ninety-seven..."

Nathan stopped in front of him. "You really do that many or do you just bump the number by 80 whenever anyone walks by?"

"Got to keep in shape, Mal," Jayne said, his arm muscles bulging impressively as he raised and lowered himself. "Too many women out there heard of me, I got to live up to their expectations." He dropped to the deck and grabbed a towel off the railing. "What, you don't think I can do a hunnerd pull-ups? You got some money you're tired of?"

"No, no, I'm sure you can. Judging from the smell you've done four or five hundred already. Look, we need to talk about the Larkins."

Jayne walked over to the weight bench, rubbing the towel over his neck. "The guys what brother you done massacred?"

"Yeah, them."

"What about 'em? Shoot two more and you'll have a set." He settled back and wrapped his hands around the barbell. "Shouldn't ever leave survivors like that. They always want revenge on you and that kinda thing can really eat into your personal life."

Nathan moved behind the weight bench into the spotter position. Jayne looked startled. "I'm starting to get that. Tell me, how would you have handled it?"

Jayne held still for a second, like he was nerving himself for an attack, before starting to pump the bar up and down. "Just the way you did (grunt), captain. It was an inspired (grunt) move o' thrillin', action-packed genius (grunt), is what it was."

"Why don't I think you're serious? Oh, wait, because you're talking."

"Not gonna (grunt) catch me second-guessing you (grunt). You're the boss."

"You second-guess me all the time! You third- and fourth-guess me! You're second-guessing me right now!"

Jayne pushed the bar back up to the rack and sat up quickly. "Then I ain't gonna second-guess you when you're standin' over me and my hands is full o' something heavy."

"OK, fair enough, But they ain't full now."

"You boys having a problem?" Book walked into the cargo bay carrying a towel and wearing a T-shirt and loose pants instead of his usual preacher outfit.

"Captain's getting' all itchy over the Larkin boys wantin' to shoot him a little," Jayne said. He stretched back onto the bench and began lifting again.

"He ain't wrong, preacher," Nathan said. He stepped out of the way as Book took his place as spotter.

"Is their anger justified? Did you have a good reason to shoot that boy?"

"It was needful." Probably.

"Then you need to find a way to convince them of that."

"Maybe I could make it up to them?"

Jayne snorted. "What, go to the pet store and buy 'em another brother looks just like the old one?"

"Can't replace a life, son," Book said. "You can only move on with the lives that are left."

"Or shoot the rest of them and be done with it," Jayne said.

"Well, thank you, you've both been really helpful."

Nathan turned to leave but Book called to him. "Captain... if you'd like, I could go meet up with them first. Most folks won't draw on a man of God, might be I could find a way to smooth things out before they see you."

_Tempting, more than tempting, but..._ "I appreciate that, preacher. But I don't plan to give them any hostages. I did what I did, I'll own up to it."

Book smiled. "Spoken like a man knows his responsibility."

"Spoken like a man what ain't gonna live to see Tuesday. Captain, after you own up to it, can I have your stuff?"

"Go pump yourself, Jayne," Nathan said, and he left hurriedly.

Simon was in sickbay but he had joined the crew long after the Larkin incident, so no help there. Mal walked faster to get past before he was spotted but a thought struck him and he stopped suddenly. Maybe River could tell him? She hadn't been on the ship either, but maybe she could read Jayne's mind and find out what happened.

He shook his head and kept walking. _Nah, no reason to make her go into that swamp if she didn't have to._ Besides, Nathan had been doing a good job avoiding River so far and now wasn't the time to break his streak. Time to go back to his bunk and brood some more. He was starting to see the appeal of it.

Kaylee came bouncing down the stairs as he was going up. "Hey, cap'n! Everything shiny?"

"Nuthin' but kittens and dandelion wine. Hey, I ever confide in you?"

"You mean, like with personal stuff, like a person? Hell, no, cap'n, not once." Her eyes got wide. "Are you gonna?"

"Probably not. Just checking."

He left her and fled to his room. This wasn't helping.

He kicked aside some of the scattered clothes and collapsed onto his bunk. Shit, no wonder Mal was mopey all the time. Nothing like having "maybe getting shot in the face" as part of your job description. This was a hard life, and to survive you had to be a rock. Rocks didn't open up much. And the effort of staying in character was starting to wear on him. It was like doing one of Joss' long, trademark oner shots where the scene just kept going and going and going. Every time he finished talking to someone on the ship he found himself waiting expectantly for someone to yell "cut!"

What he needed was someone he could talk to that wouldn't take it as a sign of weakness or uncertainty, two things a captain could not afford, apparently. Didn't the 'verse have psychiatrists?

On the plus side, if he ever did get back and (he crossed his fingers) a sequel got made, he'd have new insights into his character. He really understood Malcolm Reynolds now, in a way he never really had before. Suddenly he couldn't wait to get back and talk to Joss about this. Why, if they did get a sequel going he'd probably—

"What's an 'Oscar'?"

Nathan yelped and scooted backwards to the head of his bed. In front of him River's face appeared like a wraith, slipping out of the shadows in the corner of his room as she moved silently and gracefully to sit near him.

"Whoa! Hey, where'd you come from?"

"Where did the rest of you go?" she asked.

"What? I'm right here, girl. Hey, what are you--" She leaned forward and stared at him intently, running her gaze up and down his body like she was looking for clues. Finally she sat back.

"Now you're broken, too," she said. "All your sorrows, all your memories, pulled out like taffy, pressed flat, and put back in on sheets of paper. You look like you, you smell like you, but sometimes you talk and walk and think like someone else who's just trying to be what everyone thinks is you. It's hard," she said, reassuringly. "I know."

"Nothin' wrong with me a little rest won't cure. Just a little concussion makin' it hard to remember things, just like your brother said."

"Concussion. Immediate and transient alteration of neurological function caused by mechanical acceleration and deceleration forces. Can cause headaches, irritability, loss of concentration, and loss of physical ability as well as specific neurological ailments such as hysterical posttraumatic amnesia."

Nathan sat up. "Yeah, those."

She jumped up to her knees and put her hands on Nathan's head. "Not amnesia. Broken. Your whole life emptied out and you're playing make-believe so no one will know." Her expression turned to puzzlement. "But not broken. You're whole, and complete, and you know things." She let go and pushed herself off the bed to stand behind the ladder, her hands grasping the pole by her face. "Who are you?" she asked fearfully.

_Oh, go se_, Nathan thought. "Look, River—"

"Who is Summer?"

Suddenly Nathan wished he remembered more Chinese from the show. "Go se" really wasn't going to be enough. "It's difficult to explain…"

"Pretend people. You're full of pretend people. Pretend friends, pretend doctors, poking and prodding and stealing my memories until all I can see are shards and slivers and fragments reflecting what I was, and you know that." Abruptly she stood up straight, prim and proper, just like a cultured Hollywood debutante posing for the paparazzi. "It's been lovely but I should run now, Simon will be worried about me—"

"River, please do me a favor."

She stopped, surprised. "Me?"

"I'd like to tell you a story. But first, look at me, however you do it. Do I mean you any harm, even the slightest little bit?"

River stared at him with impossibly large eyes. Finally she slipped back and sat next to him. "Tell me a story."

"Once upon a time, there was a man named Joss…"

And he told her everything. He told her about Edmonton, and his family, and his discovery of acting, and New York, and California, and meeting the man who made him a captain. He told her about the show, and the fans, and the love so many people had for this little spaceship and her crew. He told her about making the movie and how glad he was to return to his favorite role. He told her about conventions, and the van, and how he ended up here. And he told her how scared he was.

Through it all she remained utterly silent.

"You think I'm crazy, huh," Nathan finally asked.

"I don't think I'm the right person to judge. But I believe you."

"So what's my next step? I ain't the captain, all of my tough moments were written by someone else."

"You need someone to write your script for you."

"I don't think the WGA has offices out here."

"Tell me something, captain-who's-not."

"Anything."

"What's she like?"

Something about the way she said it told Nathan who "she" was. "She's beautiful, like you. Not as smart as you, but no one is. A little older. And she loves to dance."

When River smiled full blast, her whole face was transformed. "I have a sister."

"You do, at that."

"When you go back, tell her I love her."

"I surely will. When I go back?"

River got up to leave. "You can't stay here. Dreamland is only for a little while, you both have to wake up. We all need our people back."

"This ain't just dreaming, girl."

"That's all anything is," she had said, and then she'd left him there.

And now it was time. The crew hadn't taken well to his notion of fronting up to the Larkins alone and unarmed, but it felt right. He didn't want violence to ensue the second he stepped out armed -- especially since he was good on the quick-draw, not so hot on the aiming -- and putting himself in their hands voluntarily seemed like a good way to open up negotiations.

Zoe had remained impassive, but he could feel disapproval coming off her in waves. Jayne just looked disgusted. The rest were worried, in various degrees, except for River, who looked like she was watching a show. And Inara…

Nathan had avoided Inara more than anyone. Playacting in front of a person who had real feelings for who he was supposed to be seemed dishonest, a slap in the face she didn't deserve even if she wouldn't know. It made him feel awkward around her, and he was rarely awkward around anyone. When she tried to speak up he talked loudly over her, ordering everyone to stay in the ship and be ready to launch if anything deadly happened to him, and then he left quickly before she could follow for their character moment.

It was actually a hell of a performance. Joss and Tim would have been proud.

He stood in front of the hatch and hit what he really hoped was the right button. Be embarrassing to stand here all heroic like and then heroically blast himself with fire-suppressing foam. Luck was with him; the doors opened, letting hot air rush in and blow his hair about. Sunlight shone in, making him squint. There was no one in sight, but which was a bit of a relief, but he could see a settlement a ways off. _OK. Be the captain. Be the captain. Be the captain_. He stepped out into the sunlight.

And stopped when he heard the unmistakable sound of several guns being cocked behind him.

He turned around, slowly, to see ten disreputable-looking men step out from around and under the ship where they must have taken positions the second Serenity landed. The biggest and ugliest one, by a disturbingly large margin, was the one standing in front of him and holding a big gun aimed at Nathan's left nostril.

"Look, boys," he said. "It's Malcolm Reynolds, sure as I live and breathe. And here I thought I wouldn't get to murder anyone today."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

"I came here to talk," Nathan said to the large, snarling men surrounding him. "I got no weapon." _Fortunately what I _do_ have is an insubordinate, headstrong crew who oughtta be jumping out to rescue me any second now_, he thought. _One great thing about Zoe and them; they always do the right thing, even when their ignorant, more-bullets-than-brains captain tells them otherwise. _"We can do this reasonable-like, but you know if you make any wrong moves my heavily-armed people will—"

Without warning, the ship's hatch rose up behind him to close with a ringing and final sounding clang, the engines firing right along with it. Nathan exchanged looks with the assortment of ugly in front of him and, as one, they all raced away to jump behind the nearest cover. Serenity's engines spun around and pounded the ground with air, whipping stinging sand and debris everywhere as it rose gracefully into the sky. Nathan threw his arm over his eyes and dropped to the ground. "—will take off like their asses were on fire," he finished mournfully.

He stood up. _Crap_. Larkin – whichever one it was – walked up beside him and put his arm around Nathan's shoulder. They both watched Serenity disappear into the clouds. "Guessin' this wasn't how it was s'posed to go?" Larkin said.

"No, they were actually followin' orders. Just didn't expect them to choose this particular moment to start, is all."

"Ha! Ain't that always the way, sure as God made butterbeans squishy? You just can't get good help these days, Mal. I blame the schools."

Nathan continued to stare into the clear blue. Maybe Serenity would reappear, roaring up like vengeance to strike down these thugs, rescue him in a daring manner, and save the day in time for the credits to roll. Any minute now. Any minute... A small flock of what looked like starlings flew lazily across the sky.

The Larkin brother clapped him on the back. "That's some hard cheese, Malcolm. Look, I'm sorry to have to rush ya like this, but we just got time to give you a savage beating before dragging you back to the homestead behind the horses. Mama'll give us holy hell if we're late, so we gotta shake a leg, here. You understand."

Nathan sighed. "Oh, of course. Don't want to keep Mama waiting. Where do you want me?"

"That's what I like about you, Mal. You're a professional."

And the men crowded around, grinning. Some of them had sticks.

Only being able to see a slice of Larkin's hideousness wasn't nearly as much of an improvement as it should have been. A ragged slot had been hacked into the door of Nathan's cell, presumably for viewing purposes, and right now Nathan was viewing some of the ugliest, brownest teeth he'd ever seen outside of a zombie movie.

"Here's your grub," Larkin said. The door opened just wide enough for a metal bowl of something vaguely organic to be dropped onto the floor before slamming shut again. "You'll wanna get your strength up before tonight."

"Why? What happens tonight? I have to fight your champion for my freedom, or maybe some vicious animals? You have some fiendishly difficult physical labors for me to attempt, or a suicidal quest where I can earn my freedom or a valiant death?"

The big man shook his head and whistled. "Damn your nips to Hades, you oughtta write for the Cortex! Nah, just not much point fixing you up when we're gonna kill you. But soup's cheap, so what the hell."

"So no doctor?"

"Got some clean rags somewhere, you want 'em."

Nathan eased himself slowly and painfully back into a horizontal position. His _hair_ hurt. "Forgive me if I'm outta line, but how come you didn't just shoot me out there and leave me for the cats?"

The slice of Larkin looked offended. "Mal! We ain't barbarians! There'll be a trial, straight and on the level!" He grinned again. "That's tonight, we're setting up for it now. It'll be somethin', too, we got family coming in from all over, just for it. And the dance, afterwards."

"I'll bring a date. So a trial means I get a lawyer, right?"

"Yep! And sure as my name is Lost Lee Larkin I promise to do everything in my power to get you a swift and more or less painless execution." He stuck three gnarly fingers through the slot. "You have my word on it."

"Thank you, that eases my mind in my hour of woe." Nathan pushed himself up carefully, with the unsteady movements of an old man, and took the fingers in a friendly shake. And then without warning he pulled back on them with all of his might. He didn't get all of Larkin's hand through the slot on the first try but that was only because one of the leftover fingers wouldn't bend back far enough. Maybe if he put his weight on it...

"Agh! Lurn shwei jah jwohn! Gorrammit, Mal, leggo my ha—aaaagh! God!"

Nathan got both feet up on the door and pulled harder. "You're gonna have to butcher me one-handed, Lost!" he bellowed. "This one's coming with me so I can scratch my ass in hel--"

Pain shot through his hands as an echoing boom crashed through his head. He let go and fell to the floor, holding his fingers and trying not to scream. Through the now slightly wider slot he could hear Larkin in a similar situation, except without the not-screaming part. There was another set of eyes behind the door now, and the smoking barrel of a gun.

"Why'd you do it, Mal?" she asked sadly.

Either she had taken it into her head to crouch to fire her warning shot or Mama Larkin was a tiny woman, no higher than three feet -- or one meter; did they ever say if they used feet or meters? -- and she resembled, in expression, attitude, and general coloring, a pit bull. Nathan looked at her black, beady eyes and felt an overwhelming urge to offer her a biscuit. "Why'd you do such a crazy, cruel thing to this family what never did anything but do business with you fair and on the square?" She shook her head. "Don't make no sense I can see."

"Mama Larkin—"

"_Don't you ever call me that_!" she roared, her voice thunderous in the small room, even louder than the gun shot. "You don't get to cozen up to me after what you took from my family, and not a one o' your slippery words is gonna change it!"

He dropped to his knees (painfully) and looked at her from about 4 inches away, suddenly grateful the door was locked. "Mrs. Larkin, I am truly sorry for any pain I have handed you, but I had no choice. I did what I had to do." _Whatever the hell that was. Dammit, Mal, what did you do?_

"Don't be so ignorant. Of course you had a choice. Everything you do is a choice, the good Lord tells us that. This lunk here," and she kicked something at floor level that moaned. "Even he's got the choice not to be stupid, although it's more of a challenge for him, bless his heart. It's up to each one of us to make the right choice and live in His glory. You coulda done the job the way you were supposed to, way you agreed to. You had that choice. Yeah, you probably woulda been horribly kilt. Instead, you went selfish on us and I cannot abide that."

"Sorry I couldn't oblige, ma'am."

"Now you're gonna get kilt anyway. See? You'll still be a wormfeast but you coulda saved me and mine all that suffering and loss. That's plain selfish in my book, Malcolm. I always thought better of you than that." What Nathan could see of her teared up. "You were like one of my boys, Mal."

"Mrs. Larkin, I –"

"No! Not another word! There's so much honey in your mouth if you start talking I'll have to slip fifty pancakes under it to catch it all! You stay right there and think about the final destination of your everlasting soul in your last hours breathing air. Oh, and one more thing to bounce around in your noggin."

"Ma'am?"

"You're in Jimmy's room."

"Jimmy lived in a prison cell?"

"We added the bars just for you, when we got your wave. This is the room he lived in and this is the room he finally died in, two days after you gutshot him." She leaned closer, so her forehead was touching the door, and lowered her voice to a whisper. "You know, we can hear him, some nights. A'wailin' and a'weepin', shriekin' like a lost soul. I'm thinkin' you and he ought to sit and talk for a spell. Straighten some things out." She kicked something; there was another moan. "Get up, Lost, there's work needs doin'. Goodbye, Mal. I'll see you tonight."

_What a delightful woman,_ Nathan thought as he listened to them walking (and in Lost's case, staggering) away. _Maybe Jayne's Larkin collection wasn't such a bad idea after all. _ Still, he had to look on the bright side. At least he knew their names now.

As cells go this one wasn't too bad, although Nathan sincerely hoped that most of the changes had been made after Jimmy died. He had a window (newly barred), a toilet (no lid, no water, no paper), a bunk (no pillow, no blankets), a cabinet (empty and rotting), and a closet (empty and water damaged). There were also some disturbing looking stains here and there he didn't care to speculate about, and some hung-up pictures of naked women he might have speculated a little more about if he didn't hurt quite so much. The boys had been thorough.

Nathan worked himself up into a sitting position on the floor and looked around. At the moment, the odds of him launching a successful escape attempt were minimal. At the moment, the odds of him launching a successful bowel movement were minimal.

Let's see. A broken rib or two, bruises everywhere, some deep cuts on his face, one eye swollen shut and the other not too far behind, some dandy areas on his head that didn't bear investigation if he ever wanted his eyes to stop watering, a brand new set of stinging fingers, and… wait, was that...? There seemed to be a small area behind his left armpit that didn't hurt. _They must have missed a... _no, no, it had just gone numb. It did hurt, after all. _Ow. Ow. Ow._ This was supposed to be when the makeup people swooped in and touched him up while he reached over behind the set dressing to grab the cool drink he'd stashed. He looked, just to make sure. No drink.

However, if Jimmy's marauding spirit was haunting the place he was being awful peaceable about it, and Nathan was grateful for any upside he could get right now.

Where had Serenity gone? Why did they leave him there to be killed, just because he told them to? How the hell was he going to get out of this? Unlike Malcolm Reynolds, Nathan had precious little experience in jail-breaking. _Knew I shoulda tossed River out the airlock once we landed, yelled 'Miranda,' and closed the door_, he thought. _Then I could have just waited 'til the screaming stopped and tranked her, problem solved_.

From the position of the sun he had about three hours before dark, if that's when the trial was. OK. How tough could this be? The bars were just added, he should be able to work something loose. After all, he was the hero.

Two and a half hours later he slumped against the side of the bunk and watched his cracked and oozing hands bleed. The hero was suffering a setback. The bars had been welded directly onto the rebar in the walls, and the door was solid oak and hard as a studio exec's heart. _Couldn't I just fade to black again and we'll pick it up at the trial and my exhilarating rescue?_ Depression was starting to set in, and while depression was where Malcolm Reynolds hung his hat and grabbed a coffee, Nathan didn't know his way around at all. What was worse, that started a whole new round of despair, one he'd so far avoided.

_Ooh, coffee. What I wouldn't give for a almond latte right now. Or a piping hot pizza. Or Sun Chips. Or a frosty beer, with chunks of ice sliding down the side just like in the Superbowl commercials._ He allowed himself a good twenty minutes of self-torture, thinking about all the niceties of twenty-first century American (and Canadian) life before heaving a deep sigh and dwelling on the one thing he'd been missing most.

Halo 2.

Well, yeah, of course he missed his girlfriend, that went without saying, but right up there with her he missed his clan. Just a text message away were his loyal buds BJ, Marisa, Corey, Patty and Alan, ready and willing to do some serious virtual violence. _We were a well-oiled machine and I'm their well-oiled Overlord! We were kicking Covenant ass up and down that goddamn..._ With a shock Nathan realized this was the longest he'd gone without playing Halo 2 in nearly a year. His Xbox came with him to movie sets and long dinner dates, and even during conventions he could usually grab a console in a game room somewhere and blast a level or two. His hands started to twitch.

He had to get out of here.

_I need to be Mal, and I need to be him quick. Think, Fillion!_ Couldn't get out, so his only chance was going to be between here and the trial. _Be Mal. Be Mal. Hell, be River._

When they came for him, he was sprawled on the concrete floor. He was proud of how pathetic and helpless he looked. Dried blood was still caked on his face. His limbs hung from his body like a rag doll. _Nope, I'm not a threat, not me! La la la... _ From the sounds there were two guards, and from the smells they were big and didn't hold with water much. They dragged him out of the room, his feet dangling behind. As soon as they got distracted and no one was looking, he was going to make his daring move and run away like a scared little girl.

OK, it wasn't any kind of intricate, Batman kind of plan, but he was pressed for time.

He kept his head dropped between his shoulders but even the views of the floor revealed a successful business. Thick carpet, painted molding. This was a well-to-do family, or one that wanted to look like one. Down the hallway he started hearing the crowds. It was like being carried to a high school football game. They hustled him around a corner, up a flight of stone steps, and out through a rather pleasant living area into the huge back yard where everyone in the world was waiting. They gave a loud cheer, and it wasn't a "hi, we're glad to see you" cheer.

Nathan lifted his head wearily. Most backyards in Los Angeles tended towards either the size of a postage stamp (where the house's inhabitants nevertheless spent a great deal of time weeding and planting) or a small country (where the house's inhabitants spent a great deal of time bragging to guests about the great deal of time their landscapers spent weeding and planting. The yards in Edmonton were a bit more spread about, with most of them providing enough room to play a good game of touch football but not enough to get lost.

This was more like a plantation. Sprawling, filled with different buildings that looked like barracks and barns and silos, with a huge clearing in the middle that was currently filled with angry people.

They all had that indefinable ugliness that marked them as Larkins and they were all upset and shouting at him. Torches gave them all a demonic appearance, their eyes glowing in the flickering red light. None of them seemed interested in looking away for a few well-chosen minutes. Before him two lines of armed thugs were glaring at him like he'd been stomping puppies and hadn't cleaned his boots yet, and at the end of that line was a man in a menacing, face-covering black robe. He was wearing a gun.

Guards filed out behind Nathan, blocking his escape back into the house. He was suddenly and efficiently blocked on three sides and his plan seemed to have a hitch in it somewhere. _Gotta be a way. There's always a way. Be Mal. Be Mal. How would Mal get past lines of armed honor guards to defeat a powerful..._

Suddenly the world just clicked, everything looked strangely familiar, and Nathan's head cleared completely. The roaring of the crowd faded to a dull murmur. He smiled. _I shouldn't be thinking like Mal. Mal couldn't get past those grunts._

_But the Master Chief could._

In his mind Nathan saw not the executioner, but the Prophet Regret on a floating throne, taunting him with crushing defeat and an embarrassing game restart. _Let's go, Marines,_ he thought wildly. _Death to the Covenant!_

Yanking himself away from the thugs Nathan dashed down between the lines, getting halfway through before they reacted. Dodging and ducking and spinning, he jumped over one guard's swung rifle butt and rolled to avoid another punch, never stopping, never engaging. He had a goal, and in his mind he was thumbing his controller like a madman. _Jump, jump, jump, crouch/grenade jump..._ With a mighty leap he hurdled two more guards and landed on the robed figure, pummeling it in the head and neck until they both went down in a heap. _Melee attack, you son of a bitch! I 0wn this level!_

After a few satisfying punches he grabbed the gun from the figure's holster and held it to the cowled head, panting and feeling manly as all get out. "Y'all just back off now," he yelled to the stunned crowd. "If there's gonna be killing here tonight, I won't be the first one! Let's just be reasonable and settle this like nice, non-murderous folk!"

Angry muttering joined the sounds of weapons being cocked left and right. The mob didn't seem terribly impressed. And, with a sinking feeling, he looked to his right to see what he couldn't have seen before: a makeshift platform, upon which sat an old man in a red robe and a white wig surrounded by more armed guards. There was an empty lawn chair next to him. The fact that he was currently eating out of a greasy bag of popcorn just made him look scarier for some reason.

A few feet away another man in a black robe stepped forward. "You see?" he boomed, his deep voice carrying easily across the yard and possibly into the next life. "This man is so unforgivably savage he would brutally assault his own lawyer in full sight of this august body!"

Nathan looked down at the figure he'd been whaling on. "Lost? That you?"

Lost pulled his cowl back over his head, groaning. His hand was heavily bandaged. "You son of a—"

"So, you think I got a chance here?"

"Settle down! The court is now in session! The honorable Laramie Larkin presiding!" the judge called out. He rapped the butt of his revolver against the arm of his chair. "Let the prosecution begin!" Lost stood up and brushed himself off, glaring at his client as he grabbed his gun back.

The other robed figure began to pace back and forth. "If it please the court, the prosecution will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the accused, Malcolm Reynolds, is a no-account, back-stabbing, two-timing, lily-livered coward what's lower than frog shit on a pond bed and dirtier than a whore's last set o' sheets."

Nathan leaned over to whisper to Lost. "You gonna object?"

"Why," Lost asked, still struggling to his feet. "He ain't said nuthin' yet I disagree with."

The judge waggled his revolver in the prosecutor's general direction. "Bring forward your first witness."

"The prosecution calls... Mama Larkin!" The crowd gasped.

"Oh, good," Nathan said. "And here I was afraid it _wouldn't_ be a circus."

Mama strode forward with dignity and hopped onto the seat next to the judge. The crowd bowed their heads as she went by although not, Nathan noticed, enough to be useful to him. The prosecutor held up a bible. "Mama, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nuthin' but the truth, so help you God?"

"Of course, Jake." _Ah, I was wondering when the last brother would show up,_ Nathan thought. _Good to see a family working together._

"Where were you on the night of February 21, 2513?"

"Why, I was right out here on the porch, watching Malcolm commit all those horrible crimes."

The prosecutor spun around to face the crowd, beaming. "Thank you, Mama, no further questions."

"What?" Nathan yelled.

The judge motioned. "Lost, silence your client." Lost punched Nathan hard in the kidney. Nathan went down. The front rows of the crowd surged forward with a happy growl. "Thank you, Lost. Your witness."

"I have no further questions, pa. Um, your honor."

Nathan wheezed from his position flat on his back in the dirt. "Anytime you feel like defending anything, you just sing out."

"Gee, I would, Mal, but my throat's kinda sore from where some sah gwa punched me in it. Maybe by tomorrow, a little lemon water, it'll feel better. Oh, wait, you'll be dead by then, won't you?"

"You wouldn't be such a wiseass if I'd had my Energy Sword—"

"Will the defense call its first witness before the leaves change, please?" the judge yelled.

"There's a problem there, your honor," Lost said, smirking and spreading his hands. "You see, we ain't exactly got—"

"The defense calls Inara Serra to the stand!" came a loud, female voice from the back. Mal sat up. Lost spun around. Behind them the astonished crowd melted away to reveal Inara in shining robes of gold and silver, impossibly lovely in the firelight, looking regal and not a little dangerous. An intricate pearl and gold filigree tiara was woven through hair so black it completely disappeared in the night, combining with her golden skin to grant her the presence of a goddess. She swept forward with the majesty of queens to stop in front of Nathan's goggling counsel.

Lost looked like he'd been hit in the forehead with a wooden woman. "The defense does?" he asked, confused. A tug at his britches dragged his attention down to where Nathan was aiming a punch directly at Lost's inseam.

"The defense does," Nathan said sincerely.

Inara kept her cool gaze leveled straight ahead. Lost accepted the inevitable. "The defense calls whats-her-name," he yelled. Inara walked forward and, accepting a hand from the preening judge, sat down where she was quickly sworn in. The judge tossed the bag of popcorn away and quickly wiped his hands in his hair, greasing it down.

Lost quickstepped over and struck a legal pose he'd seen on an old movie, only slightly hampered by his lack of suspenders. "Would you please state your name for the court?"

"Inara Serra, Companion, formerly of the House of Sihnon." Muttering and awed murmurs rose from around the audience. For the first time, Nathan began to have a good feeling about this.

"And how are you acquainted with the accused?"

"I rent a shuttle from him," Inara said. She fixed Nathan with a haughty glare. "A purely... business... arrangement." Her arched eyebrows expressed what the chances were of any other kind of arrangement happening, ever. A few of the younger women in the front rows laughed. Nathan blushed. "But I've rented from him for over a year and I think I know what sort of man he is."

Nathan began to wonder if there was time to could throw himself on the mercy of the court.

"So, Miss Serra, knowing that, could you tell us what you were doing the night of..." Lost pulled a grubby piece of paper out of his pocket and read it slowly. "February 21, 2513?"

"I was here, on Tethys. Mal was here to do a job with you and your brother Jimmy and your brother Jake over there" -- she pointed at the prosecuting attorney, who waved; Nathan put his hand over his eyes -- "and I took the opportunity to arrange an appointment with a client in the city."

"And what was your involvement in all this?"

"None, at the beginning." She placed a delicate hand on the judge's bony, butter-coated fingers and leaned towards him. His eyes popped. "I prefer honest work, your honor, and I steer clear of ship's business." She darted a glance at Nathan, obviously expecting him to snort or make some rude comment, and she seemed startled when he didn't. By the time it occurred to him she had turned back to the judge. "I simply came back here to rendezvous with the ship."

Jake Larkin stalked up and pushed his brother aside. "And then what?" he demanded.

"And then Malcolm Reynolds shot Jimmy Larkin in the stomach."

The crowd went crazy, screaming and shooting their guns straight up. Nathan just looked at Inara, his mouth hanging open, his mind completely blank. She remained calm.

"Order! Order! I will have order and decency in my court so pipe down or I'll shoot the lot o' you!" the judge screamed. "Miss Serra, are you sure..."

"It was the only thing he could do," Inara continued calmly, as if nothing had happened. "Jimmy Larkin had already punched me in the jaw and was straddling me, ripping my dress off."

Instantly the yard went silent. Only the crackling of the flames and the whisper of the breeze filled the air along with Inara's clear, reasonable voice. "He had been drinking but he wasn't drunk. I'd seen him when we landed, staring at me, but a Companion often attracts attention and I didn't think about it. When I came back to find the captain he saw me, walking around the back of the house, and he tried to..." She stopped, her calm briefly broken with the memory. Around him Nathan could feel the crowd getting angry again, this time at anyone who would hurt such a fair creature. Even though he was more than half sure she was playing them all, he felt like hitting someone his ownself. "He hit me over and over, swearing he'd find out 'what the rich boys bought.' Captain Reynolds came around the corner to meet up with him and found us that way."

She took a deep breath, visibly fighting to compose herself. "I hadn't been with the ship long, and I knew that Captain Reynolds didn't approve of my livelihood, my clients, or, frankly, me, but even though this man was his partner and friend Mal didn't hesitate. He leaped at Jimmy Larkin and knocked him off me. They rolled around, punching and elbowing each other while I looked around for any weapon I could use to defend myself. I couldn't find one, and when I turned around Captain Reynolds was on the ground and Jimmy was coming towards me with blood and lust in his eyes. Now as a Companion I've been trained in combat. I know several forms of self-defense and I'm not afraid to kill to protect myself. But any woman here who has ever faced an angry man with rape on his mind knows exactly what I was feeling at that moment."

This time the angry buzzing seemed to be mostly female. Inara, her face lit with equal amounts of dignity and despair, turned to face everyone in the crowd in turn. "I was dizzy from being hit. I was in an unfamiliar place. I was not in control of the situation. And a vicious, brutal man thought he had the right to take what he wanted from me, humiliate me, violate me, simply because I wasn't strong enough to stop him. I can't begin to tell you what a terrible feeling that is, and I hope in my heart that no one of you ever has to know what it's like."

It was plain that some of the women around were way ahead of her. More than a few of the men looked sheepish; the rest looked furious. Jake Larkin was weeping openly.

"Jimmy backhanded me to the ground again and started to unbutton his pants. Dazed I closed my eyes and tried to prepare myself, but before he could take another step I heard a loud blast and he fell across me, motionless."

Not a person spoke. Flickering reflections could be seen in the shocked tears of more than one Larkin present.

"I know that Malcolm loved this family, loved this moon. You were good to him and you accepted him as one of your own, and that means more to him than you'll probably ever know. He did kill your kin in your own home, and I know the guilt of that eats at him to this day. But he couldn't stand by and watch a woman be abused, even by someone he loved like a brother, and because of that we left that night, not knowing what shape we'd left Jimmy in, knowing he could never return. But it ate at him, ate him alive for months, and he knew he had to come back to this place and make his peace with all of you. And now he has."

She looked at them all, serene and certain. Nathan's chest swelled with pride. _Ah ha! I knew I had a good reason! That's it, she gets free rent for three months._ "You see, Mama," he said. "I hated to do it. But I had no choice."

Excited murmurs swelled up again. Guards looked at each other, confused. Mama Larkin stood up and made her way over to stand before Nathan, looking almost straight up to see him.

"Hell, I knew that, Mal. That wasn't the point."

Nathan's mind shut down completely. "You knew what?"

"We knew why you shot poor Jimmy, that stupid little whoremonger. No offense, ma'am," she called over her shoulder.

"None taken."

"Can't say I'm glad you did it, but I always figured someone'd put a bullet in his pants to keep 'em closed, and at least it was someone who loved him."

Nathan swung his head around, staring wild-eyed at the crowds. Inara looked just as startled. "Then why...?"

"What we want to know is _where's the $80,000 you stole from us, you son of a bitch_." She stepped back and called to Lost. "Your witness."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

The worst had happened.

The thing Nathan had most feared since waking up in this fictional nightmare was now truly and unavoidably upon him, and terror yanked cold fingernails down the chalkboard of his spine. He knew instinctively that Captain Malcolm Reynolds, veteran Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds, would face this situation like a man.

"You can't do this! Wait! Please! We can work this out, just don't—"

The door slammed shut in his face with a very solid thunk. Lost and Jake knelt down and peered through the slot. "Nothing to work out, Mal," Jake said. "You're gonna be shot dead like a dog at first light and that's all there is to it. Trial's over, I won, judge ruled, we all cheered, that's it. We'd do it now only we got this here celebratory feast going and dead bodies stink up the place something awful." It was true; the party was in full swing now. Sounds of singing and heroic drinking could be heard from outside, and from the sounds and cheers Mal was being burned in effigy.

"No, I get that, that's shiny. But don't leave me in here with her!"

Behind him Inara looked up from where she had been arranging some of her filmy wraps on the bunk to sit on. Without them her bare arms shone golden in the candlelight. "You know, the compliments I get are one of the most satisfying things about my profession," she said. "The devotion. The praise."

Lost and Jake exchanged glances. "Um, Mal," Lost said. "To be honest, we figured we wuz doin' you a kindness, letting you have one last, you know..."

"Evening of bitter sarcasm and uncomfortable silences?"

"Oh, you two got married?"

"Some people even worship me," Inara said to the air. "Although that can get a little embarrassing at times..."

"'Sides, we can't let her go. Her own testimony makes her one of them there accomplices, so she gets popped right there with you," Lost said.

"She didn't have anything to do with it! You can't prove she stole anything. Hell, you can't prove _I_ stole anything!"

Jake grunted. "But you couldn't prove you didn't, could you? And the money disappeared same time you did. There's enough circumcisional evidence to float a boat!"

"Circumstantial, I think." Lost said. Jake shrugged.

"You can't kill a man on circumstantial evidence!" Nathan yelled.

"But you can kill one from behind, is that it?" Lost said. Nathan felt the temperature in the room suddenly drop twenty degrees. They weren't the brightest people ever crawled out of the mud, but he was suddenly reminded that they were very large, very angry, very armed, and on the free side of a very locked door.

"You know why I did it," he said.

"Yeah, we do. So it's a good thing you robbed us at the same time, so no one can go around saying this was cold-blooded revenge or anything," Jake said. Both Larkins stood up and left. "See ya tomorrow." After a few minutes a loud cheer rose up from outside as they joined the doings.

Nathan stood, leaning, with his hands on either side of the door and his head hanging down. "Any time anyone in Los Angeles wants to stick me with some thorazine, let's go. I'm not getting any saner."

"Come on," Inara said, "we haven't got much time. Get your clothes off."

"Say what? I'm not that kind of... Did I miss something? What happened to the coy and maddening dance of non-intimacy?"

Inara moved closer and started unbuttoning his shirt. "You're bleeding from a dozen wounds and you've got at least one or two broken bones. We need to get you patched up." Quickly (professionally?) she stripped off his clothes until he was lying on the bunk in his underwear. Or rather, Mal's underwear, which was a weird thought all by itself. She dipped another one of her veily things into the water the Larkins left – beautiful women got better rations, looked like – and started cleaning his wounds. The cool cloth alternately stung and soothed him, which was as good a metaphor for the effect Inara had on Mal as anything Nathan could think of.

_She's gonna know,_ he thought wildly. _She's been trained to read men, she's gonna know right off I ain't him, and then what happens? She goes wiggy? She thinks I'm wiggy and I end up in some futuristic loony bin? Or she just figures me for an imposter and kills me with her freaky Companion ninja moves?_ About the only thing Nathan couldn't imagine was calm acceptance. He kept his eyes closed and tried not to think about how wonderful her hands felt.

"God, they did a number on you," she said. "You can actually see boot prints in your leg, look."

"No, thank you. I'm perfectly happy in my ignorance."

"You should be, you spend enough time there."

"I keep a summer home."

"You're really banged up. Will you be able to run?"

"Why?" He smirked. "You plannin' on chasin' me?" _Dammit, Fillion, stop flirting with her! _

Too late he realized the problem; when he heard her voice he thought Morena, and he was comfortable around her in a way that Mal simply couldn't be with Inara. He didn't have Mal's intimacy issues, he was at ease around beautiful women, and the fact that he had a girlfriend and thought of Morena like a sister certainly helped cut the tension. Even now he had to resist the urge to reach out and beep Inara's nose or tickle that spot he knew about. If he wanted to stay in character, Inara couldn't be his friend.

With a sigh, he opened his eyes. Inara was bent over him, her silky hair brushing against his bare thighs as she wrapped a strip torn from her dress tightly around his swollen ankle. Her beauty was overwhelming, like stepping into bright sunlight. Morena was gorgeous and she was amazing at acting like a Companion, but Inara embodied it with every scented breath. She shared Morena's lush curves, flawless skin and huge dark eyes and infused them with endless grace and sensuality gained through a lifetime of training. Abruptly he felt aroused, nervous, and slightly resentful at feeling defensive about it, and since that was pretty much how Mal felt around her it worked out nicely.

"Why should I chase you?" she said. "Ungrateful chwen jus are everywhere, you can order them through post now."

"Inara, I do appreciate what you did. It took a lot of bravery to walk into a hostile place and tell a crowd of people somethin' they don't want to hear. Thank you. It means a lot."

She looked up at him, surprised and pleased. "You're welcome." Her smile was dazzling, the more so because it didn't look practiced.

"Three months rent, at least."

"You did save my life, Mal," she said, turning back towards his leg.

"Still, it was a courageous thing. You could have been killed."

"Instead of just being sentenced to death, you mean?"

She tied off the cloth and sat back to look for more damage. Both of them carefully ignored his tented underwear. Nathan sat up, grimacing, and reached for his clothes when they heard a horrible wailing sound that cut through the room like a siren. Screams erupted outside. Inara grabbed his arm.

"What in the—"

"Ah, Jimmy's here," said Nathan.

It was the howl of a tortured soul, the wind whistling through a graveyard, the storm roaring in a moonlight sky, the sound of a man having the life dragged out of him. Also, it was scaring the bejeebers out of Nathan but he managed to keep a straight face. "Mama Larkin warned me he was like to come around for a conference. Said he spoke up now and then, and looks like she was right. Lovely singin' voice, Jimmy!" he called to the room. "Like the angels above! Or some direction, anyway," he muttered.

The wail picked up steam and got, somehow, louder.

Nathan got up and looked around. "Jimmy, Jim, Jimbo, Jimbalaya, c'mon! No hard feelings? You gotta admit, you were actin' kinda rough that night, and hey, your family will wreak revenge for you tomorrow before breakfast. We square? With the wreaking and all?"

From outside they could hear distant gunshots and violent activity. Inara ran to the door and listened. "I don't think they're very happy to hear from him, either."

"Damn, Jimmy, didn't you have _any_ friends?"

Frightened Larkins began running through the hallway, yelling and crying. Mama Larkin appeared at the slot, looking angry. "Time's up, Malcolm! You're going in the ground now, tonight!"

Inara ran from the door just as the Larkin brothers kicked it in. "You guys had the key, you really didn't need to do that," Nathan said, pushing Inara behind him and backing away towards the closet.

"Gets the blood pumping," Lost snarled. He pointed his gun at Nathan. "Last chance! Where's the gorram money?"

"As Jimmy is my witness, I got no idea," Nathan said.

"That's it! You got any last words?"

Jake had been poised to leap and rend his prisoners limb from limb but at that he dropped his arms and looked disgusted. "Why do you always ask that? It just drags it out and they always come up with wise ass shit."

"How about 'don't shoot me'?" Nathan said.

Jake pointed at him. "See? Like that!" The brothers started to argue. Mama Larkin looked skyward for support.

Without taking his eyes off them, Nathan whispered back to Inara. "When I give the word, run. Got it?"

Streams of Larkins continued to run past the doorway. The sounds outside started to take on a more purposeful anguish, as if all the hounds from hell had declared open season on Larkins. The set of Larkins inside continued to argue, although now both Larkin brothers were pointing guns in Nathan's general direction while they bickered at each other. Jimmy's howling started going up and down an octave in a manner that was downright unsettling. Inara nodded at Nathan, her hair blowing in the breeze.

_Wait a minute. Blowing in the breeze? What breeze?_ "Hey, does Jimmy always get riled when the weather picks up?"

"It's the damn wind, you idiot," Mama Larkin yelled. "Blowing through the walls! Do you think we're some kind of stupid, superstitious hill folks or somethin'? Boys, shoot this crook!"

Lost fired. Nathan felt a hot streak shoot past his head and heard plaster explode behind him. The howling suddenly turned into a duet. "You like that, Mal? You like knowing you're about to die? Jimmy knew it for two gorram days!"

A blast past his other ear came from Jake; now there was a chorus of damned souls keening in the room. Inara stayed silent but Nathan could feel her grip leaving permanent marks on his arm. "He was callin' your name at the end, Malcolm," Jake yelled through the din.

Nathan looked back at the closet, which was now sprouting new holes. The racket was getting louder. "Yeah, that's great. Say, this wall doesn't face the outside, does it?" _It can't, 'cuz I can hear the screaming outside but I'm not hearing it coming from the closet..._

He turned back to see both Larkins aiming directly at his face. "I'd love to gut-shoot you and watch you die for two days," Jake called out. "but Mama says cruelty is a sin. I don't see it, myself, but there you go. Goodbye, Mal."

The wind forgotten, Nathan moved to block Inara and got ready to jump towards the family Larkin so she'd have a chance to get away in the confusion while they were preoccupied with shooting him. And suddenly, inside, all the turmoil and anxiety he'd been feeling suddenly drained away. He was doing what was right, and what happened next happened. It was a peaceful feeling. No fear, no worry, no regrets. He tensed his muscles. The Larkins raised their guns.

There was the attention-getting sound of a large and deadly weapon being cocked. All three Larkins froze.

"Much as I understand the impulse, I have to ask you not to shoot my captain," Zoe said from behind them.

The Larkins dropped their guns. Zoe walked into the room, her rifle held steady, and Simon came in behind her with his bag. "Zoe, doctor, good to see you," Nathan said. "Any reason you left me here all this time?"

"You told us to, sir. We obeyed."

"Yeah, that's the part that threw me. You wanna stop groping me? Inara already fixed me up as good as anybody." Simon let go of Nathan's arm, reluctantly, and stepped back, while Inara looked more stunned at the praise than the sudden rescue. "Hey, how'd you know when to bust in, anyway? Blood-tingling last minute rescue, shiny, but wasn't that cutting it close?"

"We had help, sir."

Inara's dress swirled; from somewhere she produced a live comm unit and placed it in Nathan's hand. It was warm. "They were listening in the whole time. We took the chance that I wouldn't be searched."

"So this is it," Mama Larkin said. She spat on the floor in disgust. "You kill my boy, steal my money, come in here with your sob story and then shoot more people?"

"Actually we haven't shot anybody," Zoe said. "Just scared 'em a little. Jayne was somewhat agitated about that part."

"And I didn't steal your money," Nathan said. He spun around and started feeling around the inside of Jimmy's closet. That close to the source he had to speak up to be heard over the clamor. "Did the wailing sound start about the same time Jimmy died?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Lost said.

Nathan ran his hands over the entire interior of the closet before stopping near a spot by the floor. He smiled and ripped a large chunk of wall completely out of the closet. The howling stopped immediately and warm wind swept through the room. "I was wasting my time trying to escape through the door and the window. I should have just tunneled out through the walls, this stuff is like old cheese." More chunks of wall came loose. "See, there's a thing you have to know about Ma... about me. I'll steal from the Alliance for the fun of it." Another big chunk. "I'll steal from a bank if no one innocent loses out." Two more. "And I'll steal from them what steal from others. It's a circle of life kinda thing. But I don't..." Yank. "...steal..." Yank. "...from friends!" He tugged hard at the remaining construction. There was a crash, a billowing cloud of dust, and a scream.

When everything settled there was a wall-sized hole in the side of the closet and a complete lack of Nathan. "Mama?" his voice echoed from below. "You're gonna want to see this. And ow."

Carefully, everyone crept over and peered over the edge of the hole. A few feet down, barely visible in the dim light, Nathan was sprawled on a very dusty pile of cash. There were crates all around him, and piles of assorted goods. He had two big fistfuls of money and was letting it trickle through his fingers. Mama Larkin's hand flew to her mouth. The brothers just looked pissed.

"That little shit," Jake said. "He was squirreling it away all along."

"Probably planned to blame it on Mal anyway," Lost agreed.

"Malcolm, I am so embarrassed," Mama Larkin said.

Inara leaned over to see better. "So, you didn't take it after all," she said.

"No, I... hey, you actually thought I took it?" Nathan said. "Didn't you listen to my hero speech, there?"

She smiled at him and nearly took his breath away. "I was joking, Mal. Probably."

Lost stuck his arm in the hole to give Nathan a hand up. "Hey, is that my ammo belt down there? I been lookin' for that!"

"There's a crawlspace all the way under the house, here, and it looks like he had his own way out." Nathan climbed up and let Simon prod him for a bit. It seemed to make the doctor happy. Outside the shooting and screaming had more or less stopped, but the sound of distant explosions still rocked the night. "Jayne?" Nathan asked.

"All part of our masterful plan, sir. He's blowing up one of their orchards as a distraction," Zoe said.

"But the fightin's done now."

"The distraction was for Jayne."

"Ah. Good plan."

Lost climbed down the hole to pass the loot up to Jake while Mama Larkin left to go calm down their kin and see if there was enough of the "Kill-Mal" party left to turn into a "We're-Rich-Again" party. "Looks like we're all invited to this one," Nathan said. "'Stead of just me and Inara as the guests of honor."

Zoe smiled. "I'll go collect the crew, we could use a party right about now."

"I think River suspected," Simon said. "She's been making paper streamers for the last six hours, we thought she was just being morbid." They took off, leaving Nathan more or less alone again with Inara.

"You were all set to save my life again," she said. Her eyes were shining, and when she looked up at him her neck stretched in a smooth line that cried for a caress.

_Oh crap, we're having a moment_, Nathan thought. _We can't have a moment, can we? It's not moment time!_ He still didn't know exactly when in the series timeline this was happening, but it was obvious she hadn't decided to leave the ship yet. And if she never decided to leave, if she never spent the time away from him before being thrown back into their lives by the events of the movie, would she be ready to make the decision to stay that she did? That she would? If she did, was Mal ready for it?

Nathan took a deep breath. "Well, you done doctored me and orchestrated an electrifyin' rescue. I thought it proper to keep our transactions balanced."

Something in Nathan died as he watched the light in her eyes dim, the edges of her lips pull sharply down, her whole body pull in on itself. "Transactions," she said flatly.

"It's dangerous when one person feels they owe another too much, don't you think? Gratitude turns to resentment, lamps get thrown, lawsuits come bubbling out of the ground and frighten the children, it's horrible."

Inara grabbed her veils off the bunk, no longer looking at Nathan. "You're right, much better to be even." She straightened up with an armload of filmy cloth. "I'll go mark our scoreboard so we don't lose track. Have fun at the party," she said, and she left.

Jake came over to stand besides Nathan. "Mal, you're a good man, I'll say that to God himself," he said. "But what you know about women wouldn't wet the bottom of a teacup."

"I'd say you're right, Jake," Nathan said, looking at the empty doorway. Outside the sounds were turning, a bit raggedly, into a party again, but he didn't feel especially festive. "I'd say you're right."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

"So why didn't you fill me in on that masterful plan of mine?" Nathan asked.

Around him the "We're-Not-Gonna-Kill-Mal-But-We're-Celebrating-Anyway" party was just getting to the amusing stage where anyone of a sober and conscientious nature had either succumbed to peer pressure or left to hide until it all blew over. About 30 Larkins were doggedly entertaining themselves around the yard. Fresh kegs had been tapped, musicians were playing as if their instruments were on fire (which was, in one case, entirely accurate), and the sporadic dancing had devolved into the rhythmic lurching and vertical foreplay of the determined drunkard. Nathan was sitting at a picnic table with Zoe, Wash, and Simon, who were in various stages of partiness themselves. There was also an unconscious Jake slumped over at the end of the table, nearly covered in paper streamers. Zoe paused with a brimming mug at her lips.

"You just asked me about you and the ex-Jimmy. Never said anything about losing the brain cells had your plan on 'em," she said. "Might have been a good thing to bring up about the time you were walking out into an ambush, though."

"Understandable, really," Simon said, a bit distracted. There was someone missing and he was trying very hard to appear nonchalant about it. "It's not like there was a great deal of plan to forget. 'I'll walk in and explain and they'll kill me.' Must have taken you weeks to get it just right."

Wash took the mug from Zoe. "You should checked around the bridge, you might have jotted it all down on a bottle cap somewhere." Zoe laughed deep in her throat and leaned up against him as he drank deeply.

"Hey, I had contingencies. I had a buttload of contingencies, all mapped out and ready to spring at a moment's notice," Nathan objected. "What with one thing and another, there was never the proper time to spring anything, that's all."

A roar went up from the crowd around the band, where apparently someone was doing something very impressive, very naked, or both. Simon sat up straight to look, for all the world like a neurotic prairie dog.

"So that part where you got your face beat into dog leavings was all accordin' to plan?" Zoe asked.

"Yup. In fact I thought Lost could have hit me a little harder on this cheek, but still, well within parameters."

"I'll mention it to him so's he can practice for next time."

Nathan leaned back and grinned. "Won't be a next time. We—"

"First I have to miss all the slaughterin' and now I got to miss the drunken orgy, too?" Jayne's bellow echoed across the field as he emerged from the woods at the edge. Simon whipped around and then relaxed when River slipped between the trees behind Jayne, apparently unharmed although both of them were sooty and disheveled. Jayne was carrying an empty cloth sack. "Hate to think a man can heroically risk his life to take out a strategic military location all by his lonesome and not get some of the fleshy ree-ward."

"You blew up an apple orchard," Nathan called to him.

"A _strategic _apple orchard!" Jayne yelled. "Vital to their entire defensive system! No way we woulda won if I hadn't acted fast!" River walked along behind him, happily eating an apple. The dancing caught her attention and she started wandering over to it. Simon awkwardly got up to follow her.

"It's true, sir. If he hadn't been in that field, things might have ended up very differently," Zoe said with a barely concealed smirk.

Nathan nodded good-naturedly and threw a beer at Jayne's head. "Well, then. Hail the conquering hero!" he yelled. The rest of Serenity's crew cheered, with as little sarcasm as they were able to manage. Jayne beamed and threw the sack high in the air as he chugged the beer.

"Not lonesome," came River's distant voice, barely audible from a hundred feet away over the yelling and laughing.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, the twitch helped some. Called out trajectories and suchlike the whole time I was heavin' grenades." Jayne let himself collapse on the bench in Simon's spot. "'Course I didn't pay her no mind. Little girl wouldn't know nuthin' about targeting."

Nathan had been in enough episodes to know what was coming. Instantly he threw himself away from the table just as River's apple core came whizzing in at a respectable fastball speed. Jayne's beer bottle exploded into a thousand pieces. Jayne and Wash both fell over backwards; Jayne because he was startled and Wash because he was laughing too hard to stay upright. Zoe kept her stoic thing going for nearly twenty seconds until Jayne reappeared, staring dazedly at the broken neck of his bottle, when she lost it and fell over on her giggling husband who was kicking his feet at the stars. River had already turned and flounced away.

"AS I was sayin'," Nathan continued, settling himself back on the bench and grabbing a fresh beer. "Won't be no next time. With Jimmy missin' the Larkin family has got a whole lot of love goin' begging, and they're dropping it on me. Got us a job."

Hilarity aside, that got their attention. Jayne leaned forward, a shower of glass dust cascading off his head. "A real job? One where someone promises us money and then they hand us the money and we get to keep the money?"

"Very like," Nathan said happily. It was a good thing most of them were well on their way to being hammered, otherwise they might have noticed how unbelievably smug he was just then. "Mama Larkin was so upset about almost blasting their little mixup – which would have left them broke _and _sonless _and _with an awful mess to clean off the carpet – that she just about begged me to haul their next shipment to Persephone right away and she wouldn't hear of me taking less than three times our usual amount. Got her crew, them what ain't pouring booze down their gullets, filling our hold with crate after crate of genuine Larkin Family flobotnam at this actual moment."

Oh, the expressions on their faces was priceless. He wouldn't need to eat for a week, he was so full of himself. Before they could say a word he saluted his crew with his beer and walked on, coolly oblivious to the eruption of cheers and renewed drinking he left behind.

It was a good time to get away; he was starting to feel seriously weirded out. He'd been drunk with all of them before, sort of, but Zoe, Wash, and Jayne drunk were oddly different critters than Gina, Alan, and Adam drunk and he couldn't help feeling like an outsider. _Worse, an outsider they thought was an insider._

He must be on a fast train to Sloshville himself, that almost made sense.

_Which reminds me, shouldn't I have switched back by now? Problem's solved, I done good, everyone's happy, shouldn't I be quantum leaping or something? _ He took stock of himself. No blurry vision. No wavering effects. No bursts of blue light. He was solid. He could hear the sounds around him, feel the cool evening breeze blowing over his skin and the solid dirt under his feet, smell the flowers and cut grass and the beer in his mug. A mosquito was busy worrying his arm. He was there, as there as he could be. _What if I really am stuck here?_

It hit him like a freight train. Up til now he'd been busy freaking out about being here in the first place, and then there was that whole "they're gonna kill me" thing to obsess over, but now he had time to think about it. _What if I'm not here to fix something or balance some cosmic scale? _

Nathan stumbled to a halt, stunned. Two Larkins, each holding the other one up, lumbered past him on the way to the food. He barely registered their presence. _What if that gorram RV guy sent me here and I'm stuck forever?_

"Well, captain... oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," Shepherd Book said from behind him. Nathan acknowledged him with a nod as he wiped the dripping beer off his face and chest.

"No problem, shepherd. I understand this stuff is a mocker, anyway. What's on your mind?"

"That's wine, actually. In fact, one of the proverbs advises us to give beer to those who would perish, although the conditions are somewhat different here." He, of course, was not in any way hammered. There may have been religious orders that spent as much time with the spirit of the grape as the spirit of the Lord, but Book was clearly not one of them. "I was just noticing that you seemed awfully pleased with yourself, up until you felt it necessary to wear your beverage."

"You always got to wait until I'm having a good moment to come puncture me, preacher?"

"Of course. Otherwise I lose my union card."

"You're a dedicated man, and you've done your duty. Do I need to sign anything for you, or—"

"But in this case I think a little pride is justified. You did a brave and honorable thing."

The two men stopped by the side of the house and looked out over the goings-on. The crowd had moved back to give River dancing room and she was using every inch of it. Simon was hovering around her like a man trying to catch a suicide jumper, but at least he was probably enjoying himself. As much as he was able to, anyway. The tables by the house were loaded up with foods and delicacies of all kinds, including fresh fruits, which was why Kaylee kept coming back to do her hummingbird imitation around them. At the moment she was taking a break from the dancing to load her plate high; she grinned at Nathan and Book as they came near. _ She's good people. They all are._ "I soothed some people's minds, solved a mystery, and hooked us back up with a valuable business contact. Weren't much honorable about that. Just expedient."

"I meant Inara." Book said. Good thing the only light out there was a flickjering torch; Nathan could feel all the color draining from his face. Book went on, relentless. "Position you two were in, not knowing if you were going to live or die, emotions and adrenaline boiling inside..."

"...candlelight, soft bandages, the bloodcurdling howl of a demented spirit..."

"...all that can make it very easy to take advantage of a woman, and many would say it wasn't taking advantage at all. She might have even agreed. Yet you pushed her away. Harshly, I'm given to understand," Book said, still watching River. "Right this very moment she's back in her shuttle calling you names I'm not supposed to even know, convinced and telling the world that you're the stupidest man alive."

A few feet away Kaylee was still loading her plate but it was obvious she wasn't paying attention to it. Peaches and strawberries were rolling off every which way and twice she missed entirely. "I would never contradict a lady, preacher," Nathan said finally. Book smiled, nodded once, clapped his hand on Nathan's shoulder, and left to find some quiet somewhere in the night, which at this point was probably going to involved a lot of walking. Nathan watched him disappear into the darkness. "Amazing how he does that."

Kaylee was putting an upside-down plate over the heap she was trying to balance in the hopes of getting something she could carry safely. "What's that, cap'n?"

"Make you feel like you just single-handedly saved a hundred orphans from ravenous weasels."

"Oh, that's easy."

Nathan reached over and grabbed a large bowl of bread rolls, dumped the rolls onto the table, and held the bowl out so Kaylee could let the contents of her plates fill it up. "Enlighten me."

"Well, when a bad person tells you you done good, it don't mean much, right? 'Cuz how would they know? But when a good person tells you you done good, it means something, 'cuz they know what it's like and how hard it was and stuff. And the shepherd is good for a living, so if he tells you you done good it's like God tellin' you you done good. You know? Thanks," she said, taking the bowl and beaming. Then her face fell. "I didn't mean to mention God! I'm sorry! Um.. maybe it's just respect weighs more when it comes from someone you respect." She bit her lip, waiting, plainly worried she'd been babbling.

Nathan grabbed her around the waist, causing her to squawk and clutch at her bowl to keep from losing it. He kissed the top of her head. "I need to talk to you more. I need to talk to all of you more. You remind me, OK?" _Heck with not changing anything. If I'm truly stuck here, Reynolds is gonna loosen up._

"Cap'n?"

He let go and swung her around until she bumped up against the table again. "I ain't always a mean ol' man, but sometimes I forget. Remind me. That's what you're good at, making people see how happy they could be if they'd quit worrying about how happy they ain't. So that's your job, from this day forward. Keep Serenity in the air and keep the crew cheered up. All you got to do is be you."

The sunrise of Kaylee's smile broke over her face and lit up the backyard. "That is so sweet! I'll do it, cap'n, I'll get right on it!"

"Good!" Nathan grabbed her shoulders and spun her around to face Simon's direction. He was standing by the musicians watching River, looking pensive and proud in roughly equal amounts. What he didn't look, in any manner visible to the human eye, was relaxed. "Start with him," said Nathan. Under his hands Kaylee's shoulders trembled, and even from behind he could feel the heat of her blush spreading from her face.

"Oh, I dunno..."

"That's an order, engineer and official... happy, cheery... person," Nathan said. "There's a boy needs a mess o' cheering. You may have to put in overtime, and use special tools."

He couldn't see her face just then, but he imagined she was eyeing Simon in much the same way she had been eyeing the buffet table. "He does look like he's in a non-regulation unhappy mood, don't he?"

"I knew I could count on you." She pushed her bowl into Nathan's hands without looking and headed off Simonward, a woman on a mission. _There we go_, Nathan thought smugly, as Kaylee took Simon by the hand and dragged him into the dance circle. _Changing peoples' lives is fun!_

_And I can do it. I know what happens, some of it, I can make this better. First off, when we get back I'm putting a lock on the airlock so we don't get bounty hunters raining in on us in space. And we're stocking up on catalyzers. And from now on dead acquaintances that show up in the mail get shipped right back. And..._

His vision swam; images of his girlfriend, his friends, his family, his life, hammered at him like waves crashing over his head. _And I'll never get my own life back. _From where he stood he could see most of his crew, laughing and making merry amongst themselves. _I love these people, more than almost anybody in the world, but--_

"You'd play the same part, for the same audience, and the curtain would never, ever come down," said River, startling him. She'd walked up, glowing from her exertions, while he was preoccupied with his panic attack. "Always the same lines, the same cues, the same play, because if you tried to say anything different the 'verse would whisper the correct lines to you from behind the scenery. We'd be a cage to you."

"Does everybody in this place just go around sneaking up on each other?" Nathan said. "It's not the cage thing. Well, it's not entirely the cage thing. Malcolm Reynolds is still the best part I ever played, and I'd play him again in a heartbeat. But there are people in my life I miss and different challenges waiting for me. Besides, it's not fair to you. I'm not him, I don't have his experience and skill, and if I tried to lead anybody anywhere I'd probably get them killed. Except in Halo, of course, because there I'm studly." He paused, thinking. "Although I do tend to get people killed there, too..."

"You could learn." Her face was hopeful.

"Tell me, honestly. Do you want the real Mal back?"

She looked past him, her eyes slightly unfocused. "When daddy gets home, bad children tremble and good children are comforted. The fire is high and the walls are stronger and the house becomes a home again."

"Exactly. I think."

"But the story controls the curtain, not the actors," she told him earnestly. "You can't go until someone else tells you to. None of us can."

Nathan stayed silent. _She's right. I don't have a way home. Doesn't look like I'm gonna jump back all by myself, and nothing in this universe can get me back. I'm stuck. Goodbye, honey. Goodbye mom, dad, Jeff. Goodbye career. Goodbye not getting shot at._

Before him the rest of the crew were assembling. Jayne and Wash had spent the time building a beer mug pyramid, using the snoring Jake as the base, but now they stumbled over behind Zoe. Kaylee skipped up, a grin on her face and red spots high on her cheeks, dragging a Simon who looked as though he might have accidentally tripped in some fun.

River took his hand. "You're on," she said.

He took a deep breath and forced the rising panic in the back of his head to simmer down until he could safely have his breakdown back in his bunk. Captains have to look confident. "Time to wrap this up, people. We're leavin' in the early ay em and I need you to be both bright eyed and bushy tailed; there will be an inspection."

"It _is_ the early ay em," Wash pointed out reasonably.

"OK, the not-quite-so-early ay em. And I want you all to know that..." And the buzzing started. A blast of cold swept through Nathan's body and the ground shook slightly. The rest of the crew stared at him as if he was growing an extra head, which he couldn't immediately discount; just then he was too busy feeling like someone was carbonating him.

This was a familiar feeling.

He shoved River carefully into Simon's arms and stepped back to give himself some room. Light began strobing in his eyes and he could faintly hear the sound of a car engine. A feeling of deep, blessed relief set in. He smiled.

"I love each and every one of you, you know that," he said to his confused crew. "And Kaylee?"

"Huh? I mean, yes, cap'n?" she said from behind Simon's protective arm.

Nathan put his hands down at holster level and, as his vision dimmed and the faint rushing noise in his ears became a roar, he quickly pulled his right hand up to point his middle finger at her. She watched, shocked, as he used his other hand like an old West gunfighter, slapping the imaginary hammer of his revolver over and over to shoot rapid fire birds at her. The completely dumbfounded look on her face was the last thing he saw before everything became light.

_Been wanting to do that for two days now_, he thought happily. _Maybe she'll start flipping off Mal now, and good for her_. The stars seemed to agree. They came at him faster this time, and they seemed to be welcoming him home...

At least this time when he woke up, he had clothes on.

He was sitting on the ground outside the Hilton, leaning up against the service door. At first it looked completely wrong. The sky was faded out, the air was hazy. _Great, where am I now? That's not a real sky, I'm not... oh, wait. It's just L.A._ As he watched, the sky brightened. He smiled broadly. _Nope, not even that. It's just sunrise._

In time with the rising sun, a feeling of joy and exhilaration grew inside him like a balloon full of adrenaline. That... that had been incredible. No one would ever believe him, if course. Well, maybe Joss, who seemed to live in his own fictional worlds most of the time anyway, and thank god he did, but nobody else.

And if he worked it out correctly, it was Sunday morning and he still had a day of the convention left. He just hoped they weren't too upset about him not showing up Friday or Saturday. _Oh, jeez, the guys are going to be so pissed I didn't show_. Alan, Adam, Jewel, Mark, and Christina were all supposed to be here, this was a huge deal and some people paid a shitload of money to see their captain. _Dammit, I missed the cocktail party and the banquet and the costume contest and most of the autograph signings. There's five thousand people up there gonna tear me a new one. _He sighed. _I was better off with the Larkins. I'll bet they're already talking about this online..._

Employees walked in from the parking lot, looking at him oddly but not saying anything. He nodded and leaned aside so they could get through the door. _Ah, there's my car._ The amount of relief he felt at seeing it was immense and probably disproportionate, but it made his return real. He was back. His life was back. Unfortunately his life was going to require some fast talking and some good excuses, but he could manage that. It was still easier than facing Inara again. _Well, better get this over wi--_

The door opened and smacked him in the head.

"Oh, wow, Mr. Fillion, I am so sorry! Are you OK?"

"Yeah, yeah, I never use that side of my brain anyway," he said, rubbing his head. His attacker was an obvious Firefly fan, decked out in tan pants, a maroon shirt, leather suspenders, and a brown coat that looked, if anything, better than the one from the show. This particular Mal was black and about twenty pounds lighter, but that was well within Mal parameters as far as conventions went. There was a "Volunteer" badge on a Firefly lanyard around his neck. _Damn. Busted._

The fan's face lit up. "I'm just glad I found you, we've been looking everywhere!"

"Yeah, I'm really sorry about that. See, it was all Joss' fault, he called me at the last minute--"

"I gotta tell you, Mr. Fillion, I've worked a lot of conventions, but this one has been the best ever and it's all because of you."

"—with this emergency Sudoku problem that's had him paralyzed with fright and I had to... say what?"

The fan set down the bag he'd been carrying so he could gesture better. "Are you kidding? I mean, the cast is always great but I've never seen a star stay in character all weekend! It's been unbelievable!"

Nathan sat perfectly still. "I've been here?"

"You've been everywhere! I was working the game room during the Friday night party but I heard you burst in late, ranting about the Alliance blasting your brain like River's and Adam – Mr. Baldwin – tackled you behind the open bar. Everyone kept buying you drinks and telling you not to worry, we'd keep the power-hungry maniac at bay, and finally you started laughing along with us and telling jokes and everything. I heard you spent all night wandering around the hotel talking to fans, and let me tell you everyone really appreciated it, Mr. Fillion."

"Yeah," Nathan said weakly. "I'm a giver. I didn't happen to watch Serenity this weekend, did I?"

"Saturday a few people got annoyed you kept signing autographs 'Malcolm' but everyone else thought it was hilarious. And the way you reacted when you saw Christina Hendricks! God, I thought I was gonna bust a gut laughing when you ran around the dealer run trying to find a gun that wasn't a prop!"

One by one Nathan picked up the pieces of his mind and slotted them back into place. A few didn't fit right anymore. "Did I... did I do anything that maybe I might have to apologize for? Like to an insulted fan?" He swallowed. "Or the police?"

The fan laughed. "Ha! Man, you're a funny guy! But, um, would you mind?" He reached into his bag and pulled out a glossy photo. "This was cool, but I'd like to get your name on there, too," he said, holding it out. Nathan took it gingerly.

It was a photo op picture of the fan in front of a Serenity backdrop with someone who looked an awful lot like Nathan except for the harshness around the mouth and the trapped look in the eyes. He was smiling, though. The photo was signed, "To Jimmy, I guess. Malcolm Reynolds." A chill ran through Nathan's body, as if someone had just autographed his grave.

He stuck the photo against the wall to sign it properly. "Jimmy, huh? You got any brothers?"

"No. Why?"

"Good. Stay that way. And the other actors didn't notice anything? Didn't say anything, I mean?"

"Most of them tried to stay in character, too, when they saw you doing it, but they kept breaking up and giggling. Then last night that freaky Jackson guy -- the one that kept pushing so hard to get the whole cast here? -- started following you around and acting really nervous. Man, that fight you two had? I never would have thought he'd be in good enough shape to fall down two flights of stairs with you. Pow!" He laughed again. "It really looked like you totally laid into that guy! Then you dragged him outside with you and no one's seen either of you till now. Where'd you go, anyway? We looked everywhere!"

_Not everywhere_, Nathan thought. He looked out over the parking lot but the RV wasn't there. _Still no idea what that whack job had in mind, but it sounds like trading me for the "real" Mal wasn't the plan. At least one of us got to hit him._

_Still, I can't say it was all bad, apart from the beaten up part. It's a great place to visit, but..._

Nathan drew himself up, handed the photo back, and opened the service entrance door. "Had to go offstage for a minute, that's all. Come on, there's still some weekend left." Inside he could hear sounds of conversation, laughter, excitement, and the palpable love of a shared universe.

"Hey, anyone here play Halo 2?"

Notes:

I am not affiliated or even acquainted with Nathan Fillion, Joss Whedon, or any of the people involved with Firefly and Serenity and haven't talked to any of the cast for longer than it took to get an autograph. All details included here have been taken from Mr. Fillion's many wonderful interviews where he is either remarkably open about his life or else he's just being Canadian. It's hard to tell.

The Nathan Fillion depicted here is based on his public persona as seen in interviews, premieres, blooper reels, and behind the scenes documentaries. I haven't the faintest idea what the real Nathan would do in this situation.

Be fun to find out, though...

Many thanks to everyone who has commented on my first completed fanfic (flanfic?) and special thanks to my beta reader Shmuel who kept me from looking silly when I didn't mean to.


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